New Teufel Surround Sound Systems

Although Teufel may be a relatively new name in the UK, the company has been making high quality loudspeakers in Germany for the past 30 years. Last year Danny reviewed two speaker sets at opposite ends of the price spectrum - the System 9s at around £3,500 and the Motiv 3s at £460 - and both proved to be mighty impressive. I was therefore quite keen to meet up with the guys from Teufel yesterday and hear what's new.

Choosing not to do things by halves, today Teufel is announcing no less than four completely new home cinema speaker sets. First up is the Columa 700 R, which comprises four stylish column speakers, a matching centre channel and, of course, a subwoofer to make up the full 5.1-channel complement. However, this is a fully integrated system, so the active subwoofer has a built-in receiver sporting a 300W power amp and AM/FM tuner.

The integrated receiver will also decode both Dolby Digital and DTS bit-streams, as well as handle Dolby ProLogic duties. What you don't get is support for any of the high definition lossless audio codecs, such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio HD, or even Dolby Digital Plus. Of course it's fair to say that if you're really looking to playback lossless codecs, you probably won't want an all-in-one system, and that's where the Columa 700 system comes in.

As the name suggests, the Columa 700 is pretty much the same as the 700 R, but without the integrated receiver. So you still get all the speakers and 150W subwoofer, but you'll need your own amp/receiver to drive the set. This means that you can use your existing receiver or treat yourself to a nice new model with all the latest surround codec support. Obviously losing the integrated receiver will save you some cash, with the Columa 700 system coming in at £1,074 and the Columa 700 R set costing £1,209.

Topping the new Columa range is the 900 system, which has been designed for music lovers as well as home cinema addicts. Not only have Teufel's engineers worked to make the Columa 900 do as much justice to your CD collection as your DVDs, but the speakers have also been designed to be as flat as possible. This allows all four column speakers and the subwoofer to be placed against a wall, making them less obtrusive in your living room. The Columa 900s carry a modest premium over their 700 siblings at £1,298.

The last new addition to the Teufel stable is the LT 3 set, which represents the budget offering - assuming that your budget is around the £1,000 mark (well, £940 to be precise). As with the other systems, the LT 3s comprise four column speakers for front and rear channels, but this time the centre channel is equally slim and stylish, measuring 45 x 10cm. Obviously there's a matching active subwoofer, and the whole set is rated to fill rooms up to 35 square metres - which is coincidentally the same rating as the Columa 700 system.

Teufel informed me that a Columa 700 R sample is already on its way to Danny, so check back for the full lowdown soon.